


ouroboros

by spookyfoot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07, Sort of a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 16:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot
Summary: A smile breaks through, sunshine despite the thick cloud cover overhead, “you’re such a dork.”“Sure, but no one else will believe you when you tell them.” Shiro leans over to pinch his side, and Keith squeals and almost falls of his bike; it’s the least graceful Shiro’s seen him in months but at least he’s smiling. Above them the sky darkens.“Asshole.”“Mmm, maybe,” Shiro says, “maybe not. Maybe you deserved it.”“Nope, my point still stands. You’re on thin ice, Shirogane,” Keith turns towards the horizon, smiling fading. “What do you think’s out there?”Shiro leans closer and Keith shapes himself into the space at Shiro’s side. “I’m not sure, but I remember you asking me a similar question years ago and the answer’s still the same: something worth finding.”Shiro and Keith visit the shack.





	ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> for the spot on my Voltron bingo card "support"

Twelve weeks after Keith’s released from the hospital they take the hoverbikes out into the desert, Shiro’s old leather jacket slung over Keith’s shoulders as they race across the sand. It’s still a little long in the sleeves but it stretches across his back like the curve of Shiro’s arms around his waist—a perfect fit. Six years, five sentient lions, and an alien invasion later and somehow this jacket, of all things, had survived.

It’s time to find out if the shack did too.

//

Keith dances around the subject for a while. He moves into Shiro’s quarters—their quarters, really—and carves out a space at Shiro’s side.

Some nights are better than others. Shiro’s woken more times than he’d ever admit to the thick, acrid smell of burning flesh choking the back of his throat. After, he’ll skim his fingertips over the shape of Keith’s scar under the cover of darkness, Keith’s mouth still slack with sleep and his face half buried in his pillow. When he falls into _I don’t deserve this,_ like looking up the darkened shaft of an empty well, he reminds himself that Keith chose this, chose him, and that he trusts Keith even when he doubts himself.

Especially when he doubts himself.

Other nights he wakes to Keith running his hands over the lattice of scars on his back. He starts at the base of Shiro’s spine working his way up to the nape of his neck.

“Keith?” Shiro says. Keith lets out a little hum, still tracing the story mapped across Shiro’s skin.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Go back to sleep,” Keith says. His hand drifts back up to Shiro’s neck, towards the base of his skull and cards through his hair. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

Shiro makes a small noise of protest before the soft scratch of Keith’s fingernails against his scalp pulls him under. But something lingers. It takes up space in the corner of his mind, waiting, coiled, ready to strike.

Keith stays wound.

Shiro watches as he shoots out of bed at the first trill of their alarm, sheets pooling around his waist, a slash of morning light filters through the blinds and makes a home amidst the sleek muscles of his back. The years have honed Keith into someone whipcord strong and knife-sharp but there’s a softness to him, here, that he keeps private.

In the days that follow, he catches the way Keith’s drifts—distant and thoughtful—when he thinks that no one’s looking. It reminds Shiro of how Keith kept his mother's blade hidden, unable to verbalize until he knew what words to pick. But Shiro knows when and where to look for the cracks in Keith’s armor; he knows what a mask looks like. 

He’s seen his own enough times in the mirror.

Pulling Keith aside does no good; Keith just distracts him with a kiss, with whispered half formed daydreams, with all the images his words conjure. But they’re not illusions. There are no rabbits, no hats. Just the slightest tilt of the ground shifting beneath your feet, rearranging the familiar into something surprising and inevitable. And Shiro stands, unsteady, waiting for the inevitable aftershocks.

In the end, Shiro only finds out once Keith is soft and sweaty and pliant, enveloped in his arms, lips pressed against the salt-slick skin of his collar bone.

“I wonder if the shack is still there,” Keith says. He lets it fall like it’s nothing, too casual by far.

Shiro doesn’t react aside from lifting his hand to comb through Keith’s hair. It’s even longer now. Keith hasn’t cut it in months, but it suits him. Shiro likes it, but he’d like Keith with short hair too, the sharp lines of his jaw exposed, the soft curve of his throat bared—vulnerable and begging to be kissed.

“We’ll take a day, go and see,” Shiro says.  

Some of the tension unwinds from Keith’s body. But not all of it. “Okay.”

//

But they don’t go immediately, Keith’s tamed his flint-and-spark fuse but when it comes to the things he wants—needs—he’s all too practiced at putting it off.

There are excuses to make at the Garrison, first. They may have hit a temporary lull in invasions, but there are still cities to rebuild and families to re-home, missing persons to find.

They find their chance on a dim Tuesday; the MFE’s need recalibrating, and somehow all the other paladins have mysterious tasks they desperately need to see to. Shiro suspects a plot but the look in Lance and Pidge’s eyes assured him that he’s better off not knowing. Plausible deniability.

The weather's far from ideal, the cool heavy scent of an oncoming storm lingers in the air but they need a break and he’ll take his chances. It gives him and Keith the perfect cover to make their escape.

But the desert is more than just the shack. It's shared history. It’s the cool star soaked nights they’d spent laying out past curfew, naming constellations, picking out meteor showers and the distant glow of Mars or Saturn; it’s following Keith off the edge of the cliff just to revel in the sense that this is a fall they can control and it’s one they’ll take together; two stars pulled into orbit gravitating towards their shared past even as their future carves itself into a new shape.

Maybe Keith just wants to see what parts of their past selves had made it through the war.

They ask Krolia if she wants to come with them but she shakes her head and says _visiting one grave was enough._

Without the lines of two hoverbikes snaking across the sand to lead them right to it it’s possible the Galra missed the shack entirely, focusing on the cities and densely populated areas. If you drop an invasion in the middle of the desert without any one to conquer you’ve wasted your resources. It’s like that old saying about the forest and the tree—except a thousand times messier and more devastating.

They dart and weave around one another, flying across the hard packed earth, winding their bikes up the side of canyons, down the faces of cliffs; each mile kicks up a cloud of memories.

Shiro keeps one marvelling eye on Keith and one on the path ahead—until one eye turns to two and Keith’s all he can see.

“Keep up!” Keith laughs, before diving off the cliff.

The wind whistling past his ears, Keith’s whoosh of a laugh, the smirk he tosses over his shoulder as he guns it—it’s more than Shiro thought he’d ever have.

The wind steals Shiro’s laugh as he follows.

At the bottom, Keith’s bike skids sideways and stops, a cloud of dust billowing up around him like a shroud. From where Shiro sits, Keith’s cast in silhouette, it’s only when the dust clears that his features resolve and the colors of his clothing and skin bloom outward in front of a clearing skyline.

“Keith?” Shiro says, pulling his bike alongside Keith’s. For a moment he stops just short of forgetting all the ways that things have changed, that they’ve changed. Keith turns towards him, eyes soft and a little sad, face edged by the light of the desert sun.

“Just...give me a second.”

“As many as you want.”

A smile breaks through, sunshine despite the thick cloud cover overhead, “you’re such a dork.”

“Sure, but no one else will believe you when you tell them.”

“Anyone who’s ever heard you make fake laser noises will believe me,” Keith says, “I’m gonna tell everyone on the Atlas about the time you—”

Shiro leans over to pinch his side, and Keith squeals and almost falls of his bike; it’s the least graceful Shiro’s seen him in months but at least he’s smiling. Above them the sky darkens.

“Asshole.”

“Mmm, maybe,” Shiro says, “maybe not. Maybe you deserved it.”

“Nope, my point still stands. You’re on thin ice, Shirogane,” Keith turns towards the horizon, smiling fading. “What do you think’s out there?”

Shiro leans closer and Keith shapes himself into the space at Shiro’s side. “I’m not sure, but I remember you asking me a similar question years ago and the answer’s still the same: something worth finding.”

Keith hums, but the line of his shoulders is tight.

“Keith?”

Keith avoids the question for a moment but leans in, tucking his head under Shiro’s chin and Shiro takes the opportunity to place a soft kiss atop Keith’s hair.

“Is it stupid? That I’m scared?” Keith asks.

“No,” Shiro pauses. Memories of his arm, a weapon against himself and his dreams suddenly turned weapon against others; of the blood splattered ground; of the sweat soaked nights; of running from the memories that made a home inside him. “Sometimes you need to feel the things you won’t allow yourself.”

Keith tilts his head to look up at him, “speaking from personal experience.”

Shiro’s mouth curls but it’s not really a smile. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he says. Keith pinches him, payback for earlier.

“ _Hey_.”

“You know what you did.”

Shiro lowers his head smiling a real smile into the side of Keith’s neck where he smells like dust and sweat and the faintest hint of the soap they’d used in the shower that morning. He tightens his arms around Keith’s waist. The sun creeps closer and closer to the horizon but Shiro waits and keeps waiting. Relationships have never been Shiro's strong suit but all he's ever needed to do with Keith is listen. Keith will tell him when he’s ready.

“Alright,” Keith says eventually, low and determined, “let’s go.”

//

Despite that, they go and go and go for a while without arriving. If they were to venture close to the right area of the desert, they might see the the shack at the center of a long stretch of hard-packed plains. A lightning rod with like a homing beacon for the uneasy electricity dancing under Keith’s skin. But he keeps his distance for now and Shiro lets him. He trusts Keith to make his to own decisions.

Circuitously they drift closer. It’s a lazy but purposeful slide, a series of slow concentric circles until they arrive at their target.

“Oh.”

Keith’s paused, the line of his shoulder taut. Beyond him, Shiro can see the shack, still standing. Waiting.

It looks a little worse for wear but at this distance it’s unclear if that’s due to time or something else.

Keith’s brow furrows, speculative. He’s looking at the shack like it’ll fade if he examines it too closely. Like if he pushes to hard, reality may give up the ghost and twist itself into some other, unrecognizable shape.  But then; Keith steels himself, shoulders square and straight, like he’s turned to face an oncoming storm or charging full throttle to dive off a cliff.

Keith revs his bike, crouched low over his seat as he streaks towards the shack.

A crack of thunder sounds and Shiro counts the seconds that follow before the next one. Four miles out. Not long until the storm rolls in then. They may be here a while.

Given Keith’s head start, his bike is already parked and leaning against the porch by the time Shiro gets to the shack. The door is open, but Keith is nowhere in sight. Shiro locks his bike, leaning it against the sagging front porch. It creaks under the weight.

Shiro coughs as he enters; every step kicks up a cloud of dust and the desert has plenty to spare. Keith’s board of strings and patchwork clues stares at him from the far wall, papers faded, and fluttering in the whooshing  through the half open door and filtering in through the shack’s seams. Keith is crouched by a pile of boxes and old radio equipment. When Keith had taken him here, years earlier, Shiro had always wondered what they were for. Now, he imagines Keith’s father, the strong jaw and kind eyes he’d seen from the one photo Keith had brought with him when he moved into the Garrison, sending signals out into space, waiting for a response that never came.  And he wonders if Krolia had been listening for Keith’s father, too.

Keith’s shoulders are tense, his hair falls forward shielding most of his face.

“Keith?”

There’s a small, worn box between his hands, fingers curled tight around the edges.

“Storm’s coming,” Keith says. Another clap of thunder rolls in, as if to offer its agreement.

“Mmm,” Shiro says, he’s half distracted by the items cluttering he shack, the other half focused on the small shifts in Keith’s expression—consideration, sadness, and then a careful blankness. Keith’s desperation to hide whatever it is he’s feeling is a visceral strike. He’s held Shiro in the darkest hours of night, shaking and and shivering under a sheen of sweat, convinced that he’d succeeded at delivering the finishing blow in the haunting purple light of the cloning facility. But Keith’s never pressed when it wasn’t welcome, all careful questions and soothing touches. So Shiro waits.

He wanders over to the wall adjacent to where Keith’s sitting and skims the surface of one of the boxes. His fingers come away coated in dust.  There’s a stack of cans off to his left, faded labels with, a peeling red "Last Chance!” sticker haphazardly slapped across the front of each one. 

There are dents and scratches in some of the walls—like they'd come out the other side of a close encounter with nails and fists.

Keith hasn’t told him much beyond the bare, sun-bleached bones of his time in the desert, but the shack is evidence of all those desolate days.

It’s enough to put a picture together, of empty places, of a life whittled down to and by the negative spaces.  

“Find anything interesting?” Shiro asks. He keeps his tone light but he doubts Keith is fooled. He keeps one eye on Keith, the other on the tattered board of evidence that had kept Keith focused amidst all the loss.

To his right Keith let our shaky exhale and he sets the box back down, and rises, an unnatural smile on his face as he stalks towards Shiro, sharp and decisive; more than a little predatory.

Keith sidles up to his chest, looking at him from under his thick fringe of lashes, and winds his arms around Shiro’s neck.

“We may be stuck here awhile,” he says. It’s gentle and genuine and guileless, so Shiro doesn’t expect Keith to worm his way close and lift his head, breath ghosting dangerously against the line of Shiro’s jaw.

Another clap of thunder, louder this time. It’s punctuation, like it’s offering decisive evidence that they might as well get comfortable.

And it’s too easy to get distracted. When Keith presses his body close, when his lips trace a line down Shiro’s neck, when Keith’s always been his weakness and Keith’s low whimper as Shiro slides his hands under his shirt to drift closer to the waistband of his jeans only makes him want to give in.

But. There’s something too desperate and too rough about the way Keith’s teeth catch against hit bottom lip, they way his hands scrabble up Shiro’s back, searching for purchase.

Something’s wrong.

In all the years they’ve known each other, finding his way past Keith’s walls has meant dismantantaling his own.

“Hey,” he says threading his fingers through Keith’s and leading him towards the small bed. The blankets are still askew from the last time they’d been here.

Keith lets him.

They lay down, Keith folding into the space at Shiro’s side. He’s broader than he used to be, more confident, but like this he looks too breakable by far, here where all the ghosts of his losses take on a solid shape once more. Where one can sit with Keith and hold him in his arms. 

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Shiro says, rubbing circles against the small of Keith’s back. “But you can—if you want.”

“I know,” Keith says. He turns his face into Shiro’s shirt, takes a deep breath. “I guess. I wasn’t sure what we would find. But I didn’t really expect to find anything.”

 _I didn't expect I'd still care,_ Shiro hears between his pauses.

“And then we found all of this.”

“Yeah. But still I..it's dumb. I should be over this.”

But that's the thing about grief, it's never a direct line between two points, it's landmines in the well worn tread of familiar places and shades slipping just out of sight.

“It’s okay, Keith.”

“Yeah,” Keith says. But he sounds unsure, so unlike the boy who’d risked his life to save his friend time and time again, unlike the man who’d held himself and Shiro up against the weight of gravity a knife and one arm and had chosen death rather than choose between both of their lives.  “We should go back,” Keith continues, but his face, pillowed against Shiro’s chest stubbornly stays exactly where it is.

The front of Shiro’s shirt is damp, but Shiro chooses not to comment, just runs his hand through the soft fall of Keith’s hair.

“In a little while,” Shiro says. His nails scratch against Keith’s scalp and Keith presses his face further into Shiro’s chest. “We’ll wait for the storm to pass.”

**Author's Note:**

> I lost someone important to me a few months ago and the grieving process hasn't been linear so some of that found its way here.
> 
> ...
> 
> anyways can u believe shiro and keith invented love???
> 
> come cry with me about them on[ tumblr](http://spookyfoot.tumblr.com) and [ twitter](http://twitter.com/spooky_foot).


End file.
